AuthorTopic: Presents given and received! (Read 4019 times)

This morning I was lucky enough to receive Marten's teh shirt and the XKCD woodpecker t-shirt making me a very happy camper!I was proud to give two seasons of psych to my sister. She absolutely adores that show and we sat down for the rest of the day watching the first season.

I gave a bunch of hand knitted things, DVDs, CDs, a book, and cat toys galore (each person other than my mom got one thing, there were just a lot of people to give gifts to this year) and received several books, among other things. (Some I haven't gotten yet, because they're being brought back from Utah.) I am super stoked about the books! One is a pain in the ass to find in the US, so it came from England, another is about hand-dyeing yarn, and the last is J.K. Rowling's newest book!

Also my mom got me a lamp shaped like an owl and it's pretty and makes me happy because it's an owl! OWL!

I got my stepdad a book called the Byng Ballads, which I bought because it was an interesting-looking old book with nice colour illustrations and funny poems, and which turned out to be absolutely perfect for my stepdad. Seredipitious find! Actually it was a friend who found it on an old book stall we were exploring, and I'm glad I bought it.

My mum got me various kitchen items, like a tiny spatula for icing cupcakes. My main present was a coat, which I got in September, and from my dad I got a very substantial bike D lock, and a piece of computer software which again I got in September. Various friends gave me various small things, notably a large number of candles and a midwifery memoir.

I gave...A copy of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, a copy of Zeno Clash, a tiny mixer, two small pictures of Ratatouille on canvas, a colourful knitted cap, a set of glass jars, a whetstone, and a set of disposable piping bags.

I received...A pair of striped socks, a tealight with a deer on it, a bag of liquorice, a tiny mixer, one small picture of Ratatouille on canvas, chocolate on a stick (for making chocolate milk), a pair of ceramic knives (with sheaths!), and a giant novelty clothespin.

All but the last two of each list was bought for me specifically, or by me for someone specifically. The rest are Sinterklaas presents that go to whoever ends up with them at the end of the gift-giving game. That explains why I ended up with some of the gifts I bought originally, because someone else wanted me to have it, and I bought them because I liked them in the first place. My dad got me the knives, and I got him a whetstone. Neither of us saw that coming.

Also, stuff that I bought/paid for myself: A new padlock, because I lost mine, an eight-screwdriver-flashlight combination tool, a freezer, a cabinet and two pairs of trousers. And then my mom tells me I shouldn't be so stingy...

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Quote from: snalin

I just got the image of a midwife and a woman giving birth swinging towards each other on a trapeze - when they meet, the midwife pulls the baby out. The knife juggler is standing on the floor and cuts the umbilical cord with a a knifethrow.

I gave some tokens, two Adicatballs, a book, a guilotine, a jacket, a necklace a chicken brick and a tea towel. I have received a Tshirt, some chutney and some tokens although there is a coat on the way as well when France can be bothered to ship it.

That's all I really wanted...well, maybe some money, and some more money, and some Magic cards, and a buttload of money. They say you can't buy happiness...clearly "they" have never been earlobe-deep in debt. Hah.

I got some new running gear, meaning I can now go running in horrific weather. Like today. Raining, raining, raining. Got some guitar cufflinks and a few books on this and that (most notably a clothbound edition of Shakespeare's Sonnets)

I gave some pretty interesting stuff. Got my dad some really nice whisky from a shop near my office, my mother a clothbound edition of a Tale of Two Cities (one of her favourite books), and my brother a Haynes Manual for the Millennium Falcon (and a Terry Pratchet college t-shirt). I gave and received other things but the one thing I've loved about this Christmas is having my grandparents stay with us, who live in Spain. I gave them a graduation picture of me - it feels properly weird to get somebody a picture of yourself as a present!

My wife collects warm socks but always utilitarian ones. A "casual" inquiry revealed that she'd play dress-up with them if she could. I got her a gift card from a place I found out about here, sockdreams.com.

Got my sister some clothes, perfume and the dvds for Downton Abbey series 3 and Moone Boy, as well as some other stuff.Got my father a fleece, some shirts and a book about Bonanza, as well as some other items.I got t-shirts, a fleece, the collected JLA/Avengers and the Avengers dvd and a couple of extra bits.

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Whenever someone says "I'm not book smart but I am street smart.", all I hear is "I'm not real smart, but I am imaginary smart."

LTK, how does the gift-giving game work? It sounds intriguing. Is it like a secret santa, or more like pass the parcel?

I don't know? It doesn't have much similarity with secret santa, from what I can tell. What we did was have everyone buy x presents for y euros each, gather these, and then take turns throwing a die. Throwing one or six lets you draw a card that tells you to do something. That can be: taking one present and unwrapping it, picking one present for someone else to unwrap, giving one of the presents you received to someone else, taking a present from someone else, trading a present with someone else, swapping all of your presents with someone else, and so on. That's basically just busywork, though, and it simply lets you get the thrill of receiving presents over and over again, even if you lost them earlier, and competing to get the best ones. You either continue until you run out of cards, or after a set amount of time. What usually happens then is that some people end up with a huge pile of presents and some have only one, so everyone trades them back and forth until everyone has the same number as they bought. Unless they're dicks.

The tricky thing is that you either have to get all the cards custom printed or print them all yourself and cut them up. Though once that's done you could reuse them. I played the game with my fellow master's students and with some friends of my parents'. At the student party I ended up with a massive pile of presents because a card said 'everyone older than you has to give you one present' and I subsequently had to abandon all of them due to switching places. The girl who inherited them from me went on to give them all away because she didn't want any. And so I received socks.

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Quote from: snalin

I just got the image of a midwife and a woman giving birth swinging towards each other on a trapeze - when they meet, the midwife pulls the baby out. The knife juggler is standing on the floor and cuts the umbilical cord with a a knifethrow.

Oh wow. I wonder if my family would like that more or less than the gift game we currently play... Everybody who's playing brings one gift. We draw numbers for the order of play. On your turn, you can either open a gift from the table or steal one that's already opened. If your gift is stolen, you have the same options. Once a gift is unwrapped, the turn ends and you move to the next number. We have rules of no take-backs and an item can only change hands three times in a turn, to help keep things moving. But in the last couple years, some of my mom's generation have made grumblings about finding something different to do, because "it takes too long" or something. (I'm not sure what their problem is with it exactly.)

This year I gave a coat, concert tickets, chocolates, a mani/pedi certificate, a Red Wing Boot certificate, a few books, and an iPhone case to a person who does not have an iPhone (because he got boots instead). I received a Wacom Intuos 3 tablet, a necklace, a jacket, a few books, a few gift certificates, and a fireproof document safe. (Everyone got a safe. And a scarf. And a mosquito repellant thing.)

I sat in on but didn't participate in a gift game which sounds like Bain's. I suppose it's fun, although there's something a little uncivilized about it. Wonder if it's the same as Barmymoo's pass the parcel.

Pass the parcel is a game where there are lots of gifts wrapped in one big parcel - a big one in the middle, and little ones in layers of paper. Not every layer has a gift in it. You pass the parcel round while the music plays, and then when it stops the person who is holding it unwraps a layer of paper and gets to keep the gift inside, if any. Then the person who gets to the final layer gets to open that. It's a good party game for kids - it teaches them to not be greedy, for a start!

I gave nothing and received nothing, which makes it sound as if correlation equals causation, but really it is because when you have no family and an agreement as such with your friends that that's just the nature of the beast.

I got many wonderful things. I also got two gift cards for the Pottery Barn, and I have been poking through their website for days and can't find a thing I would purchase with them. There are a few Christmas lights on clearance, but I don't really want them, a table cloth I don't really like, and lots of things that, even with the gift cards, are way out of my price range. I think I am going to exchange them for an amazon gift card online. I feel a little guilty about it.

I'll take a photo when I've got my camera charged but for now, replace Miss Corsetto's unicorn with a giraffe and that's what I got.

That looks less like a unicorn and more like a monstrous pink deformed squid.

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Quote from: snalin

I just got the image of a midwife and a woman giving birth swinging towards each other on a trapeze - when they meet, the midwife pulls the baby out. The knife juggler is standing on the floor and cuts the umbilical cord with a a knifethrow.

I think I am going to exchange them for an amazon gift card online. I feel a little guilty about it.

Two of my friends registered there for their wedding and the cheapest thing on their list was out of my price range. I said fuck it and bought the guy some clamps from Sears, because luckily they thought to register there too. (He wanted tools to fix up a house they bought. Clamps were the odd, but really one of the more necessary, things on his list.) Also Pottery Barn is just so...MEH. Boring, over-priced crap.

They say you can't buy happiness...clearly "they" have never been earlobe-deep in debt. Hah.

Yeah, I'm not sure about happiness, but a stay of harassment from student loan-sharks does wonders for my peace of mind.

In addition to cash and candy, I got some buckyballs (though the company apparently shut down a few days ago? I was just looking it up to make sure I spelled it right), a sweater, a kindle, and socks (cute ones! which I really needed). I gave my siblings video games (AC3 and some kids' kinect games) and a few books. I was too broke to buy gifts for any family members over 12, but they understood and we all had a nice time.

Probably magnets, because spherical arrangements of carbon atoms do not stick together in your intestines. Though you could conceivably swallow them.

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Quote from: snalin

I just got the image of a midwife and a woman giving birth swinging towards each other on a trapeze - when they meet, the midwife pulls the baby out. The knife juggler is standing on the floor and cuts the umbilical cord with a a knifethrow.

We made buckeyes a few years ago (round peanut butter filling dipped in chocolate so that some of the filling still shows, and so they look like chestnuts, or "buckeyes"). I called 'em buckyballs and the name stuck.

So that's what I was thinking about with the last couple of messages. Especially the "stick to your innards" one.

I gave Nick 2 Diablo III shirts, 2 button downs for work, gym shorts, Robin Williams on Broadway DVD, an Animal ornament (the muppet) and cologne. My parents each got baskets I made with toiletries that I know they use. Mom got books and a Vera Bradley bag (that I scored super cheap) and Dad got jeans and a CD I made with Father/Daughter tunes on them. Some cheesy, some ridiculously awesome- Monty Python, anyone? My brother got Steelers floor mats for his new car, a Best Buy gift card and a few tshirts. Nick's dad got a Yankees cooler, his Mom got a toiletry basket, his sister got books and his brother got a video game that's name escapes me right now. My friends got- a voodoo doll coat rack, brain ice cube mold, miscellaneous wine related things and a set of smiling cheese knives.